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I enjoyed it... it wasn't as good as the first, in fact I refer to it as a Swiss movie, cheesy dialogue and full of plot holes...

The first expendables ties with Black Dynamite as my favorite film of the last decade... if only because it was a movie I waited 30 years to see... It was the Dirty Dozen of my generation.

And the latest one is just more of that... but honestly, I don't think its meant to be anything other than a grand hurrah of self referential tribute to the big damn heroes of the 80's, 90,s and the aughts... and on that level it succeeds marvelously. You don't go to a movie like this for an epic plot or award winning dialogue, you go to it to see big damn heroes engage in ridiculous amounts of violence and throw out awful one liners... and that's all the movie is...

Unlike Dark Knight Rises, which I probably expected to much of, hoping it would break the curse of comic book movie third films, and which left me utterly disappointed and scratching my head. Expendables 2 was what I paid to see. It wasn't as good as the first one, but it didn't have to be...

Really, the only person whose age really showed through in their performance was Norris... who did next to nothing, and whenever he moved looked so stiff I wondered if he wasn't wearing a back brace under his costume... I appreciate that he was there, but he was too clean, too nice, and the self reference paid to his character was by far the most groan inducing... Also, Jet Li's character dropping out of the cast at the beginning was disappointing.

I still say the series needs Al Leong, and getting Kurt Russel in there wouldn't hurt either.

Honestly, to get myself psyched up for Expendables 2, I watched Rambo and Expendables back to back... and I came to realize something. I think when writing Rambo, Sly really glommed onto the team of mercs, and thats what gave him the idea for Expendables... Sly, when he wants to be, is a goddamn good screenwriter...

So coming off of Rambo, he wrote Expendables, and it sort of had an underlying vibe, but then he got the idea, the incredibly generous idea, to give the action stars of the 80's and 90's, friends of his who hadn't had a break in years, or jsut people whom he respected, and team them up with some of the newcomers... and the end product took on a bit of a sillier tone than what he had originally written. It happens...

With Expendables too, the idea of what he had accomplished with the first movie became apparent, and so people signed on for bigger roles, the opportunity for at least one last big hurrah, one last chance to show the youngsters how its done, and show they still had it.

And while I know Jackie Chan and Sly have been trying to work out a movie together for decades now, and Jet Li's role was originally meant for him, I am actually glad it went to Li, as his speech about being little, and deserving more money because he worked harder, was bloody priceless, easily my favorite part of the first movie...

Unfortunately, the movie fell to the same curse that all Stallone sequels face... in that the second movie of a series is always worse than the original. But if it holds true to form, the next one will be much better... I mean Rambo: First Blood part 2 sucked compared to First Blood, but Rambo 3 was pretty good, and Rambo was every bit as good as first blood. Rocky 2 was no where near as good as Rocky, but Rocky 3 was a hell of a lot of fun, so was Rocky 4.

Regardless, it was pure awesome from start to finish, and all I can do is paraphrase Mr. Universe "Oh Sly, you bring me the best violence..."

I just saw the film today and I do agree it could have been better. It was good fun and all but there was more that could have been done such as the fight between Stallone and Van Damme at the end as JCVD didn't put up that much of a fight-heck, even Stone Cold was a better opponent for Sly in the first one. The Chuck Norris cameo was funny though-Plus, I wish they had kept Jet Li for the duration of the movie. Hopefully if there is a sequel they can get a better writer for the next movie.